Unholy Death Knight Quick-Start Guide

This section of the guide is a rough introduction to the basics of gearing and playing an Unholy Death Knight. It is intended to merely be a starting point, with more advanced tactics outlined in other sections of this guide.

This guide is currently updated and maintained by Veiss Versa, who has been a raider in various DPS capacities for 9 years, and is currently 5/9M in Tomb of Sargeras. You can also find him on YouTube and Twitch.

Gear

Fresh 110s in Legion can gear up pretty quickly (~910-920 ilvl) between World Quests, Relinquished Tokens from Veiled Argunite, Heroic Dungeons, and PvP. Give our Legion Gearing Before Raids guide a read to learn which avenue of acquiring gear sounds the most interesting for you. Any gear can proc Warforged or Titanforged ilvl gains, so gear from any source can be a huge upgrade for new players.

Legendaries are difficult to distill into a simple recommendation, and multiple are useful, so check out the Unholy Gear Guide for more information.

Artifact

Thanks to the Artifact Knowledge catch-up mechanisms added in 7.3, you'll be able to empower your artifact exceptionally quickly even if this is your first 110, acquiring the first three golden traits with little effort.

As all level 110 players are above Artifact Knowledge 40 in Patch 7.3, there are truly massive gains, allowing players to acquire numerous traits with one AP token. Artifact paths are unimportant in 7.3.2 as you'll be able to grab every possible trait almost immediately upon reaching level 110.

The currently recommended artifact path for Unholy is actually a bit complex. The following list is the order one should level abilities prior to Empowering their Artifact.

Feast of Souls

Eternal Agony

Darkest Crusade

Portal to the Underworld

Scourge of Worlds

Scourge the Unbeliever

Unholy Endurance

The Shambler

Armies of the Damned

Plaguebearer

Deadliest Coil

Deadly Durability

Double Doom

Rotten Touch

Runic Tattoos

Gravitational Pull

Fleshsearer

After Empowerment:

Cunning of the Ebon Blade

Darkest Crusade

Plaguebearer

Deadliest Coil

Lash of Shadows

Death's Harbinger

Black Claws

Eternal Agony

Everything else until you unlock Concordance in whichever order you want, defensive traits as the last

Don't forget to socket your third relic slot when you hit 110. Patch 7.3 removed the quest requirements to unlock this slot. Acquiring the third relic will greatly increase the item level of your weapon and give you another free trait rank in the Netherlight Crucible.

Netherlight Crucible

Once a player has unlocked the Netherlight Crucible on one character, any character that unlocks the Vindicaar can access the Crucible and put points into the Tier 1 Trait: Fortificación de la Luz Abisal. Do this to earn +15 ilvls onto your artifact.

Players with 60-75 purchased traits can unlock additional Crucible relic traits. Because your choice in Tier 2 affects which traits you can reach in Tier 3, you need to balance both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bonuses when you make your Tier 2 choice.

However, the Crucible is complicated and the value of traits will shift based on the situation and gear. Make sure to check out the detailed Artifact Page or Netherlight Crucible page for the full list of traits.